Sick
by Princess Pinky
Summary: Jenny's not feeling quite right, so she turns to her step-mother for urgent advice.


**A/N:** Just a little fluffy fic that came to me, it's not all that great.

_**Sick**_

"I think I'm sick," Jenny proclaimed as she barged through the front door of the TARDIS.

River was standing at the console. A pair of blue velvet stilettos with diamond encrusted heels were hanging from the monitor, which the elder blonde was gazing at with a small grin. "Oh."

Jenny flopped onto the pilot seat. "It's all very strange," she continued as if River hadn't said anything. "I've never felt like this before."

River grabbed a hold of the rod beneath the monitor and swung it halfway around the console, in the opposite direction her step-daughter was sitting. "Oh?"

The younger Time Lady pressed her hands to her belly. "It's all like…" She lifted her hands and began to move them like she was a puppeteer. "And then it's like…" She then held her hands out in front of her, like she was holding two oranges and began to contract them, like she was groping someone, while simultaneously blowing air against her cheeks to puff them out while making popping noises as she opened and closed her mouth like a puffer fish.

"_Really?"_

"I must have caught alien bogies!" She jumped up in a hurry. "Can you catch alien bogies?" Her eyes widened. "Oh no! Can alien bogies make me regenerate? Or worse, turn me into a – a – a –"

"An alien?"

"Yes!"

River chortled. "No. Well, _usually_ not."

"Usually? Mum, you have to help me!" Jenny bandied around the console as her step-mother abruptly turned to face her. "Take my temperature, give me an injection, something!"

River grinned and grabbed Jenny by the shoulders, showing her the monitor overhead. "That's a full body scan, dear. You're fine."

Jenny shook her head ferociously. "I can't be fine! How can I be fine when I feel all-" she screwed her face up to mirror an unholy cross between a weevil and a silent "-inside? _Mum!_" she whined.

"You were fine when we landed," River said, moving up the stairs towards the kitchen.

"Yes. I was. So it must have happened while we've been on Earth," Jenny deduced, following her step-mother up the stairs.

River glided into the kitchen and retrieved a glass bowl from the cabinet and a custard mix from the refrigerator. She began to empty the package into the bowl as her step-daughter bounced around the kitchen, checking her reflection at odd angles in the toaster and some hanging stainless steel pots. "And what were you doing on Earth?"

Jenny threw up her hands bewilderedly. "That's just it! I don't know! Dad introduced me to Sarah Jane and everything was fine, cool even," she stressed, wringing her hands together. "Then we went out for ice cream and then we went on a few rides and I just…" She stuck out her tongue out at the metal door on the fridge, trying in vain to check for spots or pustules.

"What rides did you go on?" River probed. "Maybe you got dizzy?"

Jenny scoffed. "The Ferris Wheel. I like the Ferris Wheel," she mused. "Never been on a Ferris Wheel before, they're _cool_."

River rolled her eyes.

"But it _didn't_ make me sick!" she said adamantly. "I'm a soldier. Or I was. Soldiers don't get sick from harmless fun!"

"Well, I haven't the faintest then," River said, shrugging her shoulders as she placed a sheet of plastic wrap over the custard and then moved to the oven to retrieve a tray of freshly baked fish fingers.

With River's back turned, Jenny peered at the custard from the corner of her eye, then reached for the edge of the plastic wrap.

"I know you're a good shot, Jenny, but if your finger touches that custard, we'll have to see who's better," River singsonged as she whirled around.

Jenny was just as quick, having her hand away from the bowl before River had a chance to physically lay eyes on her. She smiled cheekily. "I like custard," she defended. "Custard's-"

"I think your father's back," she interrupted. And in the momentarily silence, a murmur of voices could be heard wafting up from the console room. She set the fish fingers on a wire rack to cool and crossed her arms, waiting for Jenny to walk out ahead of her.

Jenny _hrmphed_, but headed back down the stairs anyway. When she arrived back at the console room, she found her father and Sarah Jane Smith laughing – proper gut busting laughter with their hands braced between their knees – over something Luke and Sky looked entirely unamused about. She smiled awkwardly.

"You alright?" Luke edged, glancing awkwardly at the green-and-black clad Time Lady. "You left in a hurry."

Jenny feigned a smile. "Why wouldn't I be alright?"

When she'd recovered, Sarah Jane waved to River. "I was thinking since you're already here, Doctor – if you don't have anywhere to be that is – perhaps you, Jenny, and River would like to join us for dinner?"

The Doctor squirmed. "Oh, I don't know," he said, glancing back at his wife. "We've got everywhere and every when to-"

"We'd love to!" River interjected. She laid her hand on The Doctor's shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze, then checked her wrist watch. "Why don't you give us fifteen minutes and we'll meet you inside?"

"Oh, lovely!" Sarah Jane beamed. She nudged Sky towards the door.

Luke scuffed his way towards the door. "Coming?" he asked, looking at Jenny.

Jenny looked warily between her parents and Luke, then touched her abdomen. "I guess so…"

The Doctor beamed. "He's a good kid. In college now, can you believe that? Oxford! That's not a surprise, the boy's a proper genius. Well, not Time Lord genius, but good enough." He bounced around the TARDIS console until he came up behind his wife. "I like him. If he wasn't Sarah Jane's son – that is to say, if I wouldn't be corrupting a second generation of Smiths – he'd make an outstanding companion."

River quirked her brows. "You_ corrupted_ a second generation of Ponds."

"And you see how well that turned out!"

"I think it turned out very well indeed," River mused, tracing the outline of his lips with her red tipped fingernail. All of the sudden her eyes twinkled. "I think Jenny likes Luke too."

"Oh?" The Doctor murmured. "Well, yes, of course! He's got a much higher intelligence than your average human, I already explained that," he said dismissively. He pulled away from River and sniffed the air. "Do I smell fish fingers and custard?"

River grinned and followed him up the stairs, pausing in the doorway as he bounced across the kitchen to inspect what she'd made. "I think Jenny has a crush."

"A crush?" He picked up a finger and tossed the hot thing between his hands, blowing on it occasionally. "She looked fine to me."

"_A_ crush," River repeated, coming up behind him as he peeled the plastic wrap back and dipped the fish finger into the custard. "You know, when one person…" She wrapped her hands around his waist and crawled her fingertips up his abdomen as she spoke. "…likes another…and they get all those feelings building up inside like bubbles in a shaken bottle of pop."

The Doctor popped the fish finger into his mouth and began to chew it. "Don't be daft, River!" he responded, rudely chewing as he spoke. "Who would Jenny like? She barely knows anyone! We never stay in one place long enough for her to meet people."

"You mean we never stay any place long enough where danger doesn't occur, like…long enough to go on the Ferris Wheel and get an ice cream?"

"Exactly!" He dipped another fish finger into the custard.

"Not long enough for a budding young Time Lady to be intellectually invigorated by someone almost as smart as herself?"

"We're the last three Time Lords left in existence," he snorted. "Where would she find someone as smart as herself that she's not already related to?"

"Hmm…_Oxford?_"

The Doctor froze and a moment later, a spew of half chewed fish finger and custard blew from his mouth. "But that means…"

"I'm afraid it does."

"But – but – she and he…they…"

"_Yes."_

The Doctor broke free of her grasp. "But she's my daughter!" he protested. "That's _not_ cool!" His brow burrowed as a sudden thought flitted through his mind. "I _hate_ him!"

River grinned and blocked his view of the stairs. "No you don't!"

The Doctor's mouth melted into a frown as he wrapped his hands around his stomach. "I think I'm sick."

"Oh?" River looped one arm around his neck and used her other hand to guide her index finger from his throat down to his stomach. "We've still got ten minutes," she mused. "Would you like me to kiss you and make you all better?"


End file.
